In evaluating Eisenhower’s handling of the twin Indochina and Taiwan crises of 1953–55, it is difficult to support the argument that he demonstrated commendable restraint. Certainly he decided against a unilateral American intervention in Vietnam in the tumultuous spring of 1954, but the problem of confronting communism in Asia was larger than that. His ambition to contain Chinese influence and suppress communist rebellions in Asia led him to make a series of dramatically hawkish public statements that pledged American prestige in Asia, and from which neither he nor his successors could easily
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